Two weeks ago, Barack Obama expressed frustration with the pace of negotiations on extending the interest-rate cap on student loans[:]

We’ve been talking about it for a long time. If Congress does not get this done in a week, the average student with federal student loans will rack up an additional $1,000 in debt over the coming year. If Congress fails to act, more than 7 million students will suddenly be hit with the equivalent of a $1,000 tax hike. And that’s not something that you can afford right now.

Wow — just how much debt is the average student carrying? If a move from 3.4% to 6.8% could add $1000 in interest each year, that must be one heck of a loan.

Politico actually did the math, and suggests that Obama might have engaged in a little, er, “hyperbole”:

That was a bit of hyperbole. According to the Department of Education, if rates double, the borrower paying back the average Stafford loan would owe an additional $1,041 over the 12-year life of the loan. That would break down to $87 more annually, or about $7 more a month.

Yes, you read that correctly. Obama tells young people that unless Congress doesn’t do what he tells them to do, a very important voting demographic will face an additional $1,000 in added interest a year to their students.

Only it’s not $1,000 a year, it’s $87 a year.

And rather than make Obama pay a price for his never-ending series of outrageous lies, Politico buries this particular lie in a story about something else and, through the magic of journOlist alchemy, declares turning $87 into $1,000 “a bit of hyperbole.”

But this is the same corrupt Politico that not only gave Obama permission to continue lying about Romney’s outsourcing, they are also repeating the lie.